Sixth straight day of losses for European stocks as banks, autos, tech, fall

LONDON (Reuters) - European shares failed to rebound on Wednesday as weak results from chipmaker STMicro and Deutsche Bank, and falling U.S. stocks, kept the mood bearish despite strong results from Gucci owner Kering that boosted the luxury sector.

The German share price index DAX graph is pictured at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, October 24, 2018.

The pan-European STOXX 600 fell 0.2 percent to a new 22-month low, suffering its sixth straight day of losses as tech, banking and autos stocks tumbled and Wall Street pulled back.

Possible explosives were sent to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the Time Warner Center - which houses CNN - but traders said the slide in risk appetite wasn’t initially directly linked to this.

One trader cited the effect of interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve as a reason for the gloomy outlook before U.S. mid-term elections next month, a test of President Donald Trump’s popularity.

“Very ugly out there,” said the trader. “Markets just don’t appear to be handling the impact of rate hikes... all starting to go wrong for (Trump) just ahead of the midterms!”

“People are still nervy that the dip isn’t getting bought properly,” said another dealer.

Weighing on risk appetite on Wednesday was the euro zone’s manufacturing and services PMI reading showing business growth lost far more momentum than expected, dragged down by waning orders.

But European stocks managed relatively strong gains, seemingly set to break their losing streak until Wall Street’s lower open dragged indexes down.

Germany's DAX .GDAXI ended the day down 0.7 percent while Italy's FTSE MIB .FTMIB fell 1.7 percent with Italian banks .FTIT8300 down 3.3 percent as bonds sold off further.

The banking sector overall, the worst-performing in Europe so far this year, lost 1.4 percent with Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) shares down 4.8 percent after a steep decline in third-quarter profit.

“In Corporate & Investment Bank the bank is still losing market share (which we fear will continue), while private and commercial bank profitability has disappointed on higher investment spend,” analysts at Citi said.

“The 35 percent organic growth at Gucci and management’s confidence there has not been a slowdown in China so far confirmed one of the key features of this cycle - that the strong brands are still winning,” wrote Berenberg analysts.

Orion (ORNBV.HE) topped the STOXX, up 9.7 percent after a study showing a prostate cancer drug it is jointly developing with Bayer can delay the spread of the disease to other parts of the body.

Another strong gainer after results was BIC (BICP.PA) which rose 6.1 percent after the maker of ballpoint pens, razors and lighters reported a stronger than expected rebound in third quarter sales.